Life in the service: Sprague resident Peter Girard, 69, and his brother, Paul, both enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1962 after graduating from Norwich Technical High School. It was a way for the young brothers to choose their own destiny rather than being drafted into a branch they didn’t desire. Both brothers were sent to Fort Dix in New Jersey for basic training before being transferred to an Army installation in Fort Belvoir, Va. From there, the Girards ended up at Fort Benning, an Army outpost just outside Columbus, Ga. Peter Girard, who was in the Army until August 1965, spent the duration of his time attached to the 577th Engineer Battalion carving out air strips and maintaining heavy equipment that ultimately found its way into Vietnam. (Paul Girard was sent to Greenland for his tour.) In addition to repairing engines and transmissions on tractors, backhoes and other industrial equipment, Peter Girard replaced tractor blades and other parts to ensure the vehicles were in peak working order when they arrived in Vietnam. The 577th was deployed to Vietnam in late 1965 with the Army’s 11th Air Assault Division — an assignment Girard missed by just a couple of weeks. Created in 1963, the air division was formed as a tactical training and experimental testing unit.

After the war: Immediately after getting out the Army, the Girards found jobs at Electric Boat. Paul Girard spent nearly his entire career there, while Peter Girard stayed on for six months before finding work at Pratt & Whitney for three years. Girard spent much of his career as a mechanic in Norwich, working for car dealerships including Simon Ford. He and his wife, Gertrude, have been married for 48 years. They have two children and four grandchildren. Girard is current the assistant sergeant-at-arms at the American Legion Peter Gallan Post 104 in Taftville. In his spare time, he enjoys restoring classic cars.

Quotable: “It was wartime, but we didn’t know. It was all secrecy. You knew you were going to be drafted if you were a healthy fellow. We were learning how to build air strips for Vietnam. We did it for day after day after day.” Girard said he never thought about just missing out on a deployment to Vietnam.

“I don’t have any feelings about it. It was just something that happened,” he said.